1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to word and data base processing in general and more specifically to the processing of information which has a plurality of defined fields which include a character field, an arithmetic field and a text field.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Numerous word processing systems have been developed for the editing and manipulation of conventional alphanumeric text. Data base systems have also been developed to store quantities of information and perform various operations on this stored information such as sorting and qualifying stored records. The data base systems can be used to automatically operate on a large number of records without the operator having to call up each record individually. There are numerous applications wherein information must be handled for both editing as with conventional word processing and sorting as carried out with data base systems. However, it has been found that the display and manipulation of information for word processing applications is not readily compatible with the display and processing of information for data base applications. In view of this problem there exists a need for a method of processing information through the use of a display screen and keyboard such that the information is displayed and manipulated in such a manner that both word processing editing and data base sorting and qualification can be carried out for a system having a large number of records in a file.